Just Children
by Lira Veralily
Summary: Having lost faith, Ginny and the rest of the sixth years come across a horrifying sight on the way to Care of Magical Creatures. Set during Deathly Hallows. Warning: suicide and gore.


A/N: Week One's _Paintball (war fics)_ submission for Camp Potter.

Prompts used: Write about the Astronomy Tower during the war. / Broken. / Breathe.

**Warning**: Suicides, gore, and angst.

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**Just Children**

The sixth years were being marched to their first class of the day by Hagrid's hut when they found the bodies. Four subdued lines, one per a House, halted mid-stride when the Entrance Hall doors were opened.

Ginny's brain refused to register the scene before her. She narrowed her eyes, not quite understanding why she couldn't piece it together. Her brain finally clicked when she catalogued the two sets of feet sticking out at odd angles from the lumpy masses, and she promptly wished she could un-see what her mind had been trying to protect her from.

The Hall was silent at first, and the Death Eaters, not having seen the bodies yet, puzzled as to why the students were not moving forward.

"C'mon, you lazy sods," barked the Death Eater in the back. "Get a move—"

He was cut off by the first scream piercing the air; more quickly followed. Some of the students began to wretch. Others buried their faces into the shoulders of their classmates, sobbing.

Ginny couldn't move, horrified by the bodies. They were lying in almost the exact same spot Dumbledore had fallen the year before. It felt like someone had thrown a bucket of ice-cold water over her head. Her palms were clammy and she felt like she had been kicked in the gut.

A third year girl from Ravenclaw and a second year Hufflepuff boy; Ginny recognized the two from the previous week when she had found him crying in an empty classroom; she comforted him and listened to his ramblings. His sister had found out their parents had been murdered resisting Voldemort's attempt to recruit them. Not wanting to believe her when she told him, he had run from her and hid himself away.

The boy had told her they didn't have any other family to turn to. They were orphans, just like Harry, but worse. At least Harry had the Dursleys' roof over his head when school was out.

_They were too young…_ Yet, their blood had seeped into the flagstone crevices beneath their backs, sprawling out like the roads on a Muggle map she had seen in her father's shed. Pieces of fleshy tissue were dispersed in a morbid halo about their broken beings.

But the worst of it all were their faces, because even though they were warped in a macabre tableau, Ginny could still recognize the limp expressions they now forever wore.

It wasn't that the girl's jaw stuck out at an unnatural angle, blood seeping from the corner of her lips; or the boy had the side of his head melded in the ground. No, it was the quiet peacefulness that was imprinted in their pallid features.

A crow landed on the boy, squawking before it began to rip into his open muscles.

Her head felt fuzzy. She couldn't breathe. Her throat choked in a struggling attempted to draw air in. Merlin, she couldn't _breathe_. Why couldn't she breathe? It was too much to handle—

A hand slipped into hers, and she was able to wrench her eyes away at last. She fixed them on the grey depths staring back at her.

"You're turning red, Ginny," Luna whispered, voice having lost its airy note. "You need to breathe."

She heaved an enormous gasp, using Luna as a means to ground her panicking thoughts. She clenched her hand tighter, trying with all her might to keep herself focused away from the bodies.

Ginny forced herself to look back, feeling like a coward. It was then she noticed the two children were holding hands, much like she and Luna were now.

The Death Eater that had opened the doors approached the two forms, scaring the feasting crow away. "What a bloody mess," he muttered, but Ginny heard him nonetheless. He leered back at the distraught students. "No pun intended."

Revulsion, the likes of which she had never felt before, sliced through her nauseous haze. She snarled.

"_Murders!_"

"It was suicide," Luna said.

"No," Ginny stated. "No, this was murder."

And she was right; she could read the identical thought cross many of the students' faces surrounding her. This was Voldemort's fault, even if the two children hadn't died by anyone else's hand but their own.

Feeling the fury pounding in her veins, she drew her wand and hexed the smirking Death Eater. Sensing the stunned students' eyes on her, she thrust her wand in the air and cried, "DUMBLEDORE'S ARMY! Get them!"

And chaos ensued, for when the doors to Hogwarts had opened that grey morning, it wasn't just the ghastly view it had carried in. No; along with it the spirit of liberty had been revived in the students once more.

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If you're confused as to what happened, the boy and girl committed suicide by jumping off of the Astronomy Tower, which is the tallest tower in Hogwarts and located above the front doors to the castle.

Please read and review. I'm not so sure about this fic... I may rewrite it in the future.

~Lira


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